Books by Martin Amis
Martin Amis (1949 – 2023) was a British novelist, essayist, screenwriter and memoirist.
“Martin Amis and I used to meet up before going out in the evenings in the 70s and spend an hour downing a bottle of wine and reading aloud and celebrating Larkin. I’m sure Martin would also acknowledge the curious power of Larkin in his work.” Ian McEwan on the books that shaped his novels.
Martin Amis was part of a very literary family: his father was the comic novelist Kingsley Amis, author of Lucky Jim. His stepmother was Elizabeth Jane Howard, author of the Cazalet Chronicles. His first novel, The Rachel Papers, about a sex-obsessed teenager, came out in 1973 (and was made into a movie in 1989).
Martin Amis will publish his fifteenth, Inside Story, said to be an autobiographical novel inspired by the death of his friend, the polemicist Christopher Hitchens. It begins during their time as young magazine writers, and includes appearances from stars of the London literary establishment of that era, including Iris Murdoch, Philip Larkin, Saul Bellow and his step-mother Elizabeth Jane Howard.
Editors’ Picks: Notable Novels of Fall 2020 recommended by Cal Flyn
“It is a novel that some people find misogynistic, but it is an incredibly funny depiction of the midlife woes of an unsuccessful novelist whose friend is, so he thinks, unjustifiably famous…. The prose is astonishing and it brilliantly evokes a confrontation with mortality.” Read more...
The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000
by Martin Amis
The War Against Cliché collects together a lot of Martin Amis's reviews of other people's books (he wrote reviews for the New Yorker amongst many other publications) and essays on other writers.
Interviews where books by Martin Amis were recommended
The best books on Midlife Crisis, recommended by Kieran Setiya
It’s an observable phenomenon that the gap in life satisfaction between the very young and the very old with those in their 40s is equivalent to that associated with getting a divorce. Kieran Setiya, the MIT philosopher and author of Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, chooses the best books to counsel you through this difficult period.
Eva Hoffman recommends the best Memoirs